In recent years, use of electronic methods to store patient records has become more commonplace, both due to ad-hoc actions by physicians and as an industry response to government pressures. To fully exploit the resultant electronic health records (EHR), physicians and other clinicians need to be given access to both read and write these records. However, patient data is of a confidential nature, thus creating the problem of having to balance the need for privacy against the desire to simplify existing access and authentication protocols and procedures, which are often cumbersome.
In addition, a wide range of communications typically take place in a healthcare environment and are characterized by various degrees of criticality from the perspective of both patients and clinicians. The efficiency with which communications occur in a healthcare environment often directly affects the quality of the healthcare services provided to patients and, in some cases, has a critical impact on the condition of patients. For instance, in some situations where a few minutes can represent the difference between life and death for a patient, the efficiency of communications may be a determining factor in saving the patient's life.
Moreover, while wireless technology has the potential to provide the desired improvement in communications efficiency (such as improved clinician-clinician voice contact and delivery of medical information from databases to the clinician at the point-of-care), the electromagnetic radiating nature of this technology has led to concern over interference with sensitive medical equipment.
There is a thus a need in the industry for improvements in communications systems and methods having application in healthcare environments.